"Every gun makes its own tune." Blondie's statement late in the film after hearing gunfire in the town destroyed by cannonade, indicating that he now knows Tuco is close by. But the gun Tuco is using at this point is one he acquired after parting company with Blondie, so Blondie has never heard it fired before. How then is he able to recognize Tuco's weapon? Hanley offers a solution: it is not the sonic properties of the pistol, but the rhythmic firing pattern that gives Tuco away. "A distinct pattern of pistol shots is heard, five shots in rapid succession, a pause, then a final shot [this 5:1 pattern is the signature of Tuco . . . ]" (p. 313). Hanley hears that pattern in the film's opening shoot-out (involving Al Muloch and company), and sees it demonstrated in Buffalo Wallow when Tuco takes target practice with the wooden Indians. Perhaps, then, Blondie's later reference is not to Tuco's weapon; Tuco himself is the "gun."

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That's what you get, Drink, for being such an annoying Melville fanboy.

Anyway, so far as we have seen, Blondie has never seen Tuco shoot before that moment he hears the gun in the bombed-out town, no?

Peter's theory is cute but probably wrong.

If Blondie did hear Tuco shoot, I have a nutty theory as to how Tuco got his own gun back: Firsly, how did Tuco lose his gun? It was presimably taken away from him when he was brought to the Union camp. How did he escape the Union's clutches? By jumping off a Union train and killing Wallace. Maybe it Wallace who confiscated his pistol in the first place, which he held onto all along ... And then Tuco stole the same pistol back from Wallace's dead body

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There are three types of people in the world, my friend: those who can add, and those who can't.